The 2014 Tech 50: Ron Levi

July 08, 2014

< The 2014 Tech 50: Moving Out of the Lab and Into the Cloud

Ron Levi

Chief OperatingOfficer

GFI Group

Last year: 20

The interdealer brokerage’s lot is not all that happy these days. Like rivals such as ICAP (see Michael Spencer, No. 14), GFI Group faces an unsettled regulatory environment and volume and volatility trends that have constrained income from many over-the-counter products. Although New York–based GFI’s total first-quarter revenue was off a slight 1.5 percent year-over-year, to $241 million, April was down 8 percent. “We just have to cope,” says Ron Levi. Still, the 51-year-old COO notes, “all we do is innovate, innovate, innovate.” That story is written across an ever-expanding catalogue of products and services developed on in-house technology, from the 2003 launch of CreditMatch to the 2013 formation of swaps execution facility GFI Swaps Exchange. Half of first-quarter Americas fixed-income product revenue came from electronic matching. What’s more, technology sales are strong: Software, analytics and market data revenue grew 16 percent in the first quarter, to $26 million; the Trayport trading systems unit was up 19 percent. “Running a technology company is not new to us,” says Levi, who joined GFI in 1993, became COO in 2006 and engineered the Trayport acquisition in 2008. Now he is selling GFI platforms to major banks. HSBC Holdings became the first “white label” user last year, and others are knocking on GFI’s door as they consider cost-effective approaches for single-dealer fixed-income businesses.

The 2014 Tech 50